Tag: International Olympic Committee (IOC)

Explained: Why is Russia banned at the Tokyo Olympics 2020? What is ROC?

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Viewers will not be able to spot the Russian flag anywhere during the Tokyo Olympics 2020. The conspicuous absence is a result of Russia’s ban from the Olympics and other international sporting events.

However, Russian athletes are still competing in the world’s biggest sporting event, under the banner of the ‘ROC.’

Here is all you need to know about Russia’s ‘absence’ from the world’s biggest sporting event.

ROC Decoded 

ROC stands for the Russian Olympic Committee. The ROC is not representing Russia or any other country. Even though Russia has been banned from attending the Olympics, 355 Russian athletes will be competing under the ROC banner. A total of 11,326 athletes are competing in Tokyo 2020.

This means the Russian athletes can participate in the Tokyo Olympics while the ban still exists. But there will be no Russian flag nor will the national anthem be played. Nowhere during this global sporting event will Russia’s name be used.

Why was Russia Banned?

Russia was banned in 2019, after an extensive investigation revealed the presence of a state-sponsored doping scheme. Several authorities and international federations like the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) launched their investigations into the allegations of doping.

Before the ban was imposed for several years, former athletes and Russian officials alleged the presence of a large-scale state-sponsored doping programme in the country.

During the preliminary investigation, Russia’s anti-doping laboratory lost its accreditation. Subsequently, 111 athletes, including the entire track and field team, were removed from Russia’s 389 contingents for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Russia was also barred from the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics but 168 athletes participated in the events through special exclusion.

The investigation found that Russian authorities, including members of its intelligence services, were planting fake blood and urine samples, and deleting evidence. This was being done to allow Russian athletes to continue to use banned performance-enhancing drugs.

WADA in December 2019 announced that Russia would be banned for the next four years from all international sporting events being hosted by WADA signatories. This meant that Russia was banned from taking part in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, 2021 Tokyo Paralympics, 2021 Beijing Winter Olympics, and the 2022 Football World Cup in Qatar.

Russia was able to compete in the 2020 European Championships and the 2021 Women’s European Championships since these events were not classified as ‘major events’ in the context of doping breaches, according to the organiser UEFA.

How Russia Responded?

Russia has continued to deny many of the allegations levelled against it. The country appealed against the ban in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

In 2020, CAS announced that the period of the ban was reduced to two years from four. CAS also reiterated that Russia was also no longer eligible to host any international major sporting events. CAS also allowed Russian athletes to compete as ‘neutral athletes’ without the flag on their uniform.

Any Other Team without a Flag?

The Russian Olympic Committee is not the only stateless participant in the Tokyo Olympics 2020. There is also the IOC Refugee Olympic Team.

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Yes. Tokyo Olympics are ”a go” despite opposition, pandemic

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Will the postponed Tokyo Olympics open despite rising opposition and the pandemic? The answer is almost certainly yes.” Senior International Olympic Committee member Richard Pound was emphatic in an interview with a British newspaper. Barring Armageddon that we can’t see or anticipate, these things are a go, Pound told the Evening Standard.

Tokyo is under a COVID-19 state of emergency, but IOC Vice President John Coates has said the games will open on July 23, state of emergency, or no state of emergency. As an exclamation point, Australia’s softball team the first major group of athletes from abroad to set up an Olympic base in Japan arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday.

So the Olympics are barreling ahead. But why? Start with billions of dollars at stake, a contract that overwhelmingly favors the IOC, and a decision by the Japanese government to stay the course, which might help Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga keep his job. These factors have overridden scathing criticism from medical bodies that fear the Olympics may spread COVID-19 variants, and a call for cancellation from Asahi Shimbun, a games’ sponsor and the country’s second-largest selling newspaper.

The United States Department of State has issued a Level-4 Do not travel warning for Japan with Tokyo and other areas under a state of emergency that expires on June 20. And there’s saving face. Japan has officially spent USD 15.4 billion on the Olympics, but several government audits suggest it’s much more. All but USD 6.7 billion is public money.

Geopolitical rival China is to hold the 2022 Winter Olympics just six months after Tokyo ends, and could claim centerstage should Tokyo fail. A not-for-profit based in Switzerland, the IOC has ironclad control under terms of the so-call Host City Contract, and it’s unlikely to cancel on its own since it would lose billions in broadcast rights and sponsorship income.

Though it portrays itself as a sporting league of nations, the IOC is a multi-billion dollar sports business that derives almost 75 percent of its income from selling broadcast rights. Another 18 percent comes from 15 top sponsors.

Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College in Massachusetts who has written extensively about the Olympics, estimates the IOC could lose about USD 3.5 billion-USD 4 billion in broadcast revenue if the Tokyo Games were canceled. He suggested a small portion of this, between USD 400 million and USD 800 million, might be made up by cancellation insurance. US broadcaster NBCUniversal is the IOC’s largest single source of income.

The IOC also feels a commitment by the momentum of history to do this, Zimbalist said in an interview with The Associated Press. Their whole DNA is saying: do it, do it, do it.’ The Japanese government really does not have the right to cancel the games. They can go to the IOC and plead with them, and maybe they are doing that.” Of course, the Japanese government could stop the Olympics. It would be a public-relations disaster for the IOC to get into a legal battle with Tokyo, so any such deal would be worked out in private. The IOC’s lofty image belies myriad corruption scandals in the last several decades.

The president of the Japanese Olympic Committee was forced to resign two years ago he was also an IOC member in a scandal linked to bribing IOC members. A similar scandal surrounded Rio de Janeiro’s bid to land the 2016 Olympics.

The Olympics are a very, very strong brand. They’re a unique brand. They’re a monopoly, Zimbalist said. They are not regulated by any government. All of those things have created a sense of invulnerability, perhaps.” The medical community has offered persistent but ineffective opposition. The 6,000-member Tokyo Medical Practitioners’ Association asked Prime Minister Suga to cancel. So did the Japan Doctors Union, whose chairman warned the Olympics could spread variants of the coronavirus. Nurses and other medical groups have also pushed back.

Last week in a commentary, the New England Journal of Medicine said the IOC’s decision to hold the Olympics was not informed by the best scientific evidence. And The British Medical Journal in an editorial in April asked organizers to reconsider holding the games.

An online petition demanding cancellation gathered about 400,000 signatures in a few weeks, but several street protests have mostly fizzled. Depending on how the question is phrased, 50-80 percent oppose the game’s opening. Suga is moving ahead despite the dissension.

The fundamental situation is that the machine has been set in motion to make this happen and politically for everyone we have passed the point of no return, Dr. Aki Tonami, who teaches international relations at the University of Tsukuba, wrote in an email to AP. The Japanese system is simply not geared to make a radical U-turn at such a late point. She said negative public opinion was partly the fault of Suga, who has failed to bolster the Olympics as effectively as former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Politicians may well be aware of the risk they are taking but hope that once the Games begin the Japanese public will persevere for the good of Japan and forget how we got here, Tonami said. The IOC always references the World Health Organization as the shield for its coronavirus guidance. The IOC has published two editions of so-called Playbooks the final edition is out this month spelling out protocols for athletes and everyone else during the Olympics.

Recent test events held under the protocols have faced few problems, but athletes will have to accept strict rules. I felt beyond safe, American sprinter Justin Gatlin said at a test event last month in Tokyo. I know a lot of athletes are not going to be happy with this but the measures are in place to keep everyone safe.” Japan has had many fewer COVID-19 cases than the United States or Brazil or India. Cases have grown in the last several months but have begun to come down in the last few weeks, although worries persist about variants.

Athletes and others must pass two COVID-19 tests before leaving home, another upon arrival in Japan, and then undergo repeated testing. About 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes, plus added staff, will live in a bubble at the Olympic Village, training sites, and venues. Tens of thousands of others will have to enter Japan, which has largely been sealed off during the pandemic: judges officials, media, broadcasters, and the so-called Olympic Family. Local organizers say that number is now 50 percent of the original 180,000. Fans from abroad have already been banned, and a decision on local fans is expected this month.

The IOC says more than 80 percent of the residents of the Olympic Village will be vaccinated. This compares with 2-3 percent of the Japanese population that is fully vaccinated, and most Japanese will not be when the games open. Japan gave shots to 200 of its Olympic athletes on Tuesday, an event held behind closed doors without much fanfare. Despite assurances that the Olympics will be safe and secure, athletes are required to sign a waiver and assume risks specific to COVID-19. Waivers were used in previous Olympics, but this one is updated with COVID language.

AP obtained a copy of the waiver, which reads in part: ”I agree that I participate in the Games at my own risk and own responsibility, including any impact on my participation to and/or performance in the Games, serious bodily injury or even death raised by the potential exposure to health hazards such the transmission of COVID-19 and other infectious disease or extreme heat conditions while attending the Games…”

Bob Costas, who covered the Olympics for NBC, suggested in a recent US television interview that the games should be postponed until next year. This has been ruled out. The IOC says the Olympics must happen this year or not at all. The delay has already cost USD 2.8 billion, and the main obstacle to another postponement is the Olympics Village, where thousands of apartments have already been sold with owners waiting to move in. Dozens of venues would also have to be rebooked, and a jammed 2022 global sports schedule would have to rejiggered again.

David Wallechinsky, one of the world’s best-known Olympic historians and author of the Complete Book of the Olympics, summed up the situation in an email to Associated Press. What a mess,” he wrote.

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EXPLAINER: What drives possible boycott of Beijing Olympics

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Some kind of boycott is almost sure to affect next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics. It’s driven by the widely reported internment of Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China, which has been termed a genocide by human rights groups.

A broad coalition representing Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kong, and Chinese democracy campaigners is pushing for everything from a hard boycott, to a so-called diplomatic boycott.

Activists are also reaching out to national Olympic committees, athletes, and sponsors after failing to get the International Olympic Committee to move the games out of China. Beijing is the first city to win the right to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics were held with the hope of improving human rights in the country.

IOC AND CHINA RESPOND

President Thomas Bach says the IOC must stay out of politics, although it holds observer status at the United Nations and Bach has touted his own efforts to unite the two Koreas.

We are not a super-world government where the IOC could solve or even address issues for which not the UN security council, no G7, no G20 has solutions, Bach told a news conference last Friday after three days of IOC meetings.

China says political motives underlie the boycott effort. The Chinese describe the camps as vocational centers.

China firmly rejects the politicization of sports and opposes using human rights issues to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said a week ago. He said an effort at a boycott is doomed to failure.

ACTIVISTS HAVE MET WITH THE IOC

Activists met late last year with the IOC and asked the 2022 Olympics be moved. They also asked to see documents the IOC says it has in which China gave assurances” about human rights conditions. Activists say the IOC has not produced the documents. The virtual meeting was headed by IOC member Juan Antonio Samaranch, who oversees preparations for Beijing.

We felt like the IOC were having a meeting with us, more so that they could say they were having a meeting with us rather than because they actually wanted to listen and act on anything that we had to say,” Gloria Montgomery, campaigns coordinator at the International Tibet Network, said in a virtual briefing with other activists on Friday.

Montgomery used the 91,000-seat Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing to illustrate the size of the internment. She said if 2 million were being held, that number would fill the massive stadium 22 times.

How many people need to be locked up before the IOC changes course? she asked.

Frances Hui, director at We The Hongkongers, suggested a condescending tone from the IOC in the meeting.

The first thing we heard is: Its a very complicated world. And I asked again: How are you going to legitimatize a games that’s based in a country practicing genocide and murdering? Again the reply to me was its a complex world.

Is it hard to understand the fact that China is diminishing human rights and practicing genocide? No, she said. It should not be complicated if you really listen to us.

BOYCOTT, DIPOLMATIC BOYCOTT

Activists are talking about softer forms of a boycott, but have not ruled out the kind of boycott led by the United States in the 1980 Moscow Olympics; 65 countries stayed away, including China, and 80 participated.

I think a diplomatic boycott would be very much welcomed by all of our communities. We have been looking towards accountability, and that is definitely part of that path toward accountability,” said Zumretay Arkin, spokeswoman for the World Uyghur Congress.

Of course the athletes, its unfair to them. But athletes also have a conscience, an opinion of their own, she added.

WHAT WOULD BOYCOTT ACCOMPLISH?

Bach, who won a gold medal in fencing in the 1976 Games, was deprived of going to Moscow in 1980 as a member of the West German team. He opposes a boycott, which would also hurt the IOC finances and its image.

It’s also one of the few leverage points activists have.

Before we called for a boycott, we hoped that the IOC could strip China of hosting the Olympics, but they didn’t want to do that,” said Teng Biao, an exiled Chinese human-rights lawyer and activist. I think the Olympics is a thing the Beijing government cares very much about. We should not give up that chance.

Teng also welcomed athletes and other participants to protest if the Olympics take place with social media posts, by wearing descriptive t-shirts, or by skipping the opening ceremony.

In terms of the people in Tibet, Uyghurs, Chinese people living in China, I don’t encourage them to protest because the Chinese government has been increasingly brutal. I don’t want them to take a risk to protest during the Olympics,” Teng said.

Several activists cautioned that even athletes and other participants from abroad could be arrested in China under far-reaching national security law.

When we call for a boycott, it has to be a coordinated boycott led by democratic countries who are now accepting that the genocide that is happening,” said Dorjee Tseten, executive director at Students for a Free Tibet. ”If we don’t stand now, it will be impossible to make China accountable.

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Japan’s PM vows Olympics will be proof of victory over virus

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga vowed Monday to get the pandemic under control and hold the already postponed Olympics this summer with ample coronavirus protection. In a speech opening a new Parliament session, Suga said his government would revise laws to make anti-virus measures enforceable with penalties and compensation.

Early in the pandemic, Japan was able to keep its virus caseload manageable with non-binding requests for businesses to close or operate with social distancing and for people to stay home. But recent weeks have seen several highs in new cases per day, in part blamed on eased attitudes toward the anti-virus measures, and doubts are growing as more contagious variants spread while people wait for vaccines and the Olympics draw closer.

Suga said his government aimed to start vaccinations as early as late February.

In order to restore sense of safety, I will get the coronavirus pandemic, which has raged worldwide and is now severely affecting Japan, under control as soon as possible, Suga said. I will stand at the frontline of the battle while I get the people’s cooperation.”

Suga pledged to achieve the Olympics as a proof of human victory against the coronavirus.”

We will have full anti-infection measures in place and proceed with preparation with a determination to achieve the Games that can deliver hope and courage throughout the world,” he said.

Recent media polls show about 80% of the Japanese public think the Olympics will not or should not happen.

Suga said the vaccine is the clincher of the pandemic and hopes to start vaccination when Japan’s Health Ministry is expected to approve the vaccine developed by Pfizer, one of three foreign suppliers to Japan, as early as late February. But the pace of inoculation could be slow, as surveys have shown many people have safety concerns.

Suga also said in his speech, just two days ahead of US President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, that he hoped to meet the new American leader soon to further strengthen the Japan-US alliance and to cooperate on the pandemic, climate change and other key issues.

Japan has confirmed more than 330,000 infections and 4,500 deaths from COVID-19, numbers that have surged recently though they are still far smaller than many other countries of its size.

Suga on Jan. 7 issued a state of emergency for the Tokyo area and expanded the step last Wednesday as the surge in infections strained medical systems. But he has been criticized for being slow to put preventative measures in place after the new surge began, apparently due to his governments reluctance to further hurt the economy.

He kept the state-subsidized Go To travel promotion campaign active until late December, which critics say misguided the public when people needed to practice more restraint. Suga in Mondays speech made no mention of the Go To campaign, which was designed to support the tourism industry devastated by the pandemic.

The state of emergency covering more than half of Japans 127 million people asks bars and restaurants to close by 8 p.m., employees to have 70% of their staff work from home and residents to avoid leaving home for nonessential purposes. It’s set to end Feb. 7 but could be extended.

One of the proposed changes to anti-virus measures would legalize compensation for business owners who cooperate with such measures and allow fines or imprisonment for those who defy them.

Suga’s government also plans to revise the infectious disease law to allow authorities to penalize patients who refuse to be hospitalized or cooperate with health officials, Economy Revitalization Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, in charge of virus measures, said on a NHK public television talk show Sunday.

Health officials believe a growing number of people are defying instructions from health officials to self-isolate or be hospitalized, spreading the virus and making contact tracing difficult.

Opposition lawmakers and experts are cautious about punishment for the patients, citing human rights concerns. They also say such punishment is pointless when hospitals are running out of beds and forcing hundreds of people to wait at home.

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To cancel or not?: IOC, Japan press ahead with Tokyo Games

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga declared a state of emergency last week for Tokyo and surrounding areas. Amid the surging virus, he again promised the postponed Tokyo Olympics would be safe and secure and tried to disconnect the state of emergency from the fate of the Games.

But opposition to the Olympics is growing with calls mounting for a cancellation. The International Olympic Committee and local organizers have already said another postponement is impossible, leaving cancellation or opening on July 23 as the only options.

Two polls published in the last few days by the Japanese news agency Kyodo, and Japanese broadcaster TBS, show that just over 80 percent want the Olympics canceled or postponed, or believe they will not take place. The negative responses are up 15 to 20 percentage points from polls published just last month.

The Japanese public are already more and more inclined to oppose the hosting of the Olympics this summer, and the state of emergency reinforces the perception that it is a lost cause, Koichi Nakano, who teaches politics at Tokyos Sophia University, said in an email to the Associated Press.

As a fearful public asks to call off the Olympics, it faces the reality of Olympic finances, geopolitics, and face-saving.

Japanese taxpayers have sunk billions into the Olympics, the IOC lives off the television money and has seen its income stalled by the postponement, and China is waiting in the wings to hold the Beijing Winter Olympics in 13 months if Japan stumbles.

Japan’s standing in Asia and in the world matters a great deal, particularly in view of its rivalry with China, Nakano said. It would be a nightmare for them (Japan’s political leadership) if Japan fails to be the host of the first post-COVID Olympics and the title goes to China.

Nakano said the government wanted to avoid the emergency order, which could be extended beyond Feb. 7 and to other parts of the country. This could further embolden skeptics and imperil the Games.

Organizers have promised strict anti-virus measures to pull off the Olympics. Here’s what they face vaccine or no vaccine.

They must bring 15,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes, from more than 200 nations and territories, safely into Tokyo and still protect Japanese citizens. Add to this, tens of thousands of judges, coaches, officials, VIPs, sponsors, volunteers, media, and broadcasters. And hundreds of thousands of fans perhaps some from abroad if any are allowed to attend.

Organizers have speculated about myriad measures to counter the virus, but firm answers probably must come by March 25 when the torch relay with 10,000 runners begins crisscrossing Japan, headed to Tokyo and the opening ceremony.

It was also in late March last year when the Olympics were postponed after organizers insisted they would happen.

For Japan, hosting the Olympics has to do with justifying at least USD 25 billion in sunk costs, satisfying domestic sponsors who have pumped a record of USD 3.5 billion into the Games driven by giant ad agency Dentsu, and gaining in the geopolitical contest with neighboring China

For the Switzerland-based IOC, its a question of stabilizing its shaky income, 73 percent of which comes from selling broadcast rights getting the Olympics on television. Another 18 percent is from sponsorships.

American broadcaster NBC will pay more than USD 1 billion for the Tokyo rights, and its payments over a four-year Olympic cycle including the Winter Games account for about 40 percent of the total IOC’s income.

Unlike the NBA, English soccer, or other sports businesses, the IOC has only two major events the Summer and Winter Olympics. Dozens of international sports federations and many of the 200 national Olympic committees live off the IOC income.

IOC President Thomas Bach has described pulling off the Olympics as a mammoth task and acknowledged finances are under stress.

Dr. Atsuo Hamada, an infectious disease specialist at Tokyo Medical University Hospital, described the double-edged Olympics. It could bring pride and legacy and possibly short-term economic benefits but also the virus.

The Games may be one factor that could contribute to the risk of rising infections, he said in an interview with the AP.

Hamada said the state of emergency changed the landscape from a month ago, or from November when Bach visited Tokyo and spoke about his toolbox of measures to combat the virus. Hamada believes regular Japanese will not start receiving the vaccine until May.

He said a bubble method” once seemed feasible. The NBA and NHL were successful playing in so-called bubbles. But the Olympics would require dozens of bubbles dropped over a metropolitan area of 35 million.

Now with the state of emergency declared, the situation has changed, Hamada said. Holding the Olympics has become more difficult compared to the situation late last year.

Japan, with a population of 126 million, has handled the virus better than most countries with about 4,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19. Last week more than 20,000 socially distanced fans attended the final of the national soccer championship at the new USD 1.4 billion national stadium.

In interviews last week, the IOCs senior member Richard Pound said that making athletes a priority for vaccination would be the most realistic way of it (Olympics) going ahead.

That appeared to contradict Bach, who has encouraged all participants to be vaccinated, but has said athletes should not be a priority. He also said vaccines are not required for athletes.

Pound also told the Washington Post the odds were about 3-to-1 the Games would take place.

The IOC needs an uplifting Olympics after scandals in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and Sochi in 2014. Tokyo billed itself a safe pair of hands when it won the bid in 2013, but has been tainted by a bribery scandal that forced the resignation of IOC member Tsunekazu Takeda who was also president of the Japanese Olympic Committee.

Furthermore, Beijing’s human rights record has worsened despite promises leading up to the 2008 Olympics. Now the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics are darkened by the internment and forced labor of at least 1 million Muslim Uighurs in northwestern China.

I think it highly likely that China will frame the Winter Games . . . in terms of Chinas successful model of pandemic management and global health leadership, Sheena Greitens, who teaches Asian politics at the University of Texas at Austin, said in an email. ”I would think that Japanese leaders would be keen to exercise their leadership and burnish their image globally especially if it can be presented as leading the way into some kind of post-COVID era.

John Horne, who co-authored the book Understanding the Olympics and teaches the sociology of sports at Waseda University in Tokyo, said a cancellation was possible.

That isn’t something at the moment we can really imagine, and it’s often denied by the organizers, but it’s got to be one possibility, Horne told AP.

There is a whole series of reasons why the Japanese hosts don’t want to give up the possibility of providing an opportunity to show the world coming together,” he added. Of course, there are all sorts of problems with bringing the world together at this time, not least the transmission of the virus.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow